Collaboration options: Office 365 Groups, Microsoft Teams, and Yammer

With the recent release of Microsoft Teams and updates to Office 365 Groups and Yammer, I have been asked more than a few times to explain how organizations and teams should think about each of these collaboration products, how to determine which product is the right one, and how to effectively use them. Microsoft recognizes there are many ways for people to work together – on average, most employees participate on nearly twice the number of teams they did just a few years ago (Microsoft: US Information Worker Survey, 2009 and 2014) – and why it’s necessary to have options that address the varying needs of collaboration scenarios for an organization, a business unit, a project-oriented team, a group that blends internal and external contributors, and more.

Customers need flexible collaboration solutions and tools that keep teams connected anytime, anywhere, and that deliver seamless user experiences along with security, compliance, and manageability. Office 365 is made for collaboration. It addresses a broad range of collaboration needs and use cases across an organization and for diverse teams, as seen in the product list below that calls out potential use cases.

Microsoft Teams – Chat-based workspace

Potential use case: High-velocity collaboration, typically with a smaller number of participants

Yammer – Enterprise social

Office 365 Groups and Microsoft Teams

Office 365 Groups is a service that provides cross-application membership for a set of shared team assets, like a SharePoint site or a Power BI dashboard, so a team can collaborate effectively and securely. Microsoft Teams, the new chat-based workspace in Office 365, is built on top of Office 365 Groups and provides access to a group’s shared assets. Microsoft Teams is the best solution for persistent chat among a group’s members. Microsoft Teams does not replace Office 365 Groups.

When a new Microsoft Teams team is created, a new Office 365 Group is also created, including the associated group SharePoint site, mailbox, and OneNote notebook. If a team is activated on an existing group, then the existing site, mailbox, and notebook are used in place. For each new team, a single channel named General is also created, along with the associated SharePoint folder and OneNote notebook section.

An owner of a private Office 365 Group has the option to add Microsoft Teams to that group, instead of creating a new team. Group members can then continue to use their existing SharePoint and OneNote files as well as the Microsoft Teams functionality. To be activated for Microsoft Teams, the Office 365 Group needs to be set to “private” by the team’s owner and have fewer than 600 members (using public groups with Microsoft Teams is not possible at this time).

Yammer and Microsoft Teams

Yammer and Office 365 are truly better together, offering capabilities for document collaboration, intelligent insights, and connected experience. New Yammer features include integrations with Delve, Office Video, and Skype Meeting Broadcast. Yammer is used by 85 percent of the companies in the Fortune 500. In Yammer, groups provide the structure for people to gather in open spaces to share best practices, develop into communities of interest, and ignite new initiatives. Just announced, Yammer integration with Office 365 Groups is rolling out.

Use cases for Microsoft Teams

Here are customer use cases we are seeing Microsoft Teams used for:

Sales

Close deals faster – get answers to customer questions, advice on objections and approvals